I had a chance to meet Elizabeth Hill, the Legislative Analyst, last December at the joint legislative retreat of Senate and Assembly Republicans. She is a remarkably pleasant person, and clearly someone who has a grasp of state fiscal issues.
That said, I have to say that I was extremely disappointed at the "Alternative Budget" that her office released yesterday, that is the source of so many MSM news stories today.
Why the disappointment? Because Hill in a very antiseptic way is looking at the gap between projected state incoming and projected state spending, and is making proposals to "fill the gap" with a combination of spending cuts and de facto tax increase (by slashing existing tax credits) and proposing more fee increases.
In other words, Hill is siding solidly on the side of "growing" state government to deal with what we have said all along is an over-spending problem. If you go back over the last few budgets, you will see that there has been a *massive* increase in state spending, that is the root of the problem.
It is completely unfair to California taxpayers to hoist an additional burden on them when the liberals running the legislature have created and nurtured a "culture of spending" which is 100% responsible for our current deficit, now projected at $15 billion++.
As has been repeated over and over again by Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman and Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, raising taxes and fees are simply not options here. California government must resolve its deficit by living within its means, and that means through cutting a lot of the increases in spending that have proliferated during the 21st century.
Perhaps what is most frustrating about Elizabeth Hill’s report is that she clearly understands the problem. In fact, we’re used to Hill’s realistic assessments of state finances providing some clarity when liberals in the Capitol are playing "smoke and mirrors" and trying to make the state’s financial picture less bleak.
So it’s just unfortunate that Hill doesn’t appear to have an ideological bias towards a more limited role for government here in California. While there are some intriguing programmatic ideas in her proposal, it is very hard to get around the fact that, if adopted, would once again ratchet up the state’s "squeeze" on California taxpayers just when our state’s economy can least afford it.
You can read Hill’s alternative budget (and weep) here.
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